Mob
by Lyricism
Summary: It doesn't matter where you're from, what you occupy yourself with, how high your GPA is, or how hard you try to stay away from it. The mob will always follow you, and it will always have an effect on your love life. Zemyx.
1. Prologue

Middle school is often looked back on as being the worst years of one's life; the pressure to be perfect, the severe communal disorganization, and the extreme influence of friends can truly prove to be a challenging journey in itself. It feels as if everyone is against everyone else, as it is in some cases, and things nothing anyone does is considered 'cool' or 'in-style' unless they are the select few in the 'popular' cliques. It is sometimes compared to a gauntlet, and rightly so, due to the mentioned factors mixed with raging hormones and mutual insecurity.

This was not the case for Zexion, however. He though nothing of other's opinions of him, and he never let anyone close enough to be considered a 'friend' (in fact, the meaning of the word had long before become a foreign concept), thus eliminating any outside influences that others may wish to bedraggle him with. He lived solely by how he viewed himself and by whatever pleased him, which could be an admirable trait, should one want to be independent of the mainstream but be too afraid to do it. Of course, Zexioin left this aspect of himself unnoticed – he was himself, why analyze it any further?

On a cold night in November, he sat on his bed in his normal position, with his legs neatly stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankle, while his back was leaning against his headboard. Open on his lap sat a somewhat thick book, and Zexion's face bore its usual apathetic expression as he read the controversial text. He ignored the Roomba as it whizzed underneath and around what little furniture wasn't still boxed up, keeping his sharp mind concentrated on the novel before him.

_The Golden Compass, _it was titled, and what an interesting book it was; it portrayed the Catholic church as a sado-fascistic superpower that was bent on erasing sin from the world by experimenting on children and turning them into models of purely good behavior and creepy kindness. Needless to say, this plotline had angered the hyper-Christian population of the world, claiming the book was anti-Catholic and corrupting the youth of the world. Zexion thought that all the hype being put around the book and its corresponding movie was stupid. It was a book, books have authors, and authors have differing views on assorted subjects. It is through tolerance of opinions and acceptance that greatness is achieved throughout the world; why couldn't those people see it? Also, the complaints they had been making drew _more _readers to the novel, increasing the pointlessness of the debate.

He brushed a stray strand of blue-white hair to the right side of his face as he bookmarked his page and closed the book. Zexion had found it hard to focus on the plot because of the event that was due to happen the next day: he would be going to a new school, in sight of his recent move and the fact that the administrators from his old school in Hollow Bastion had been scared of his obvious giftedness. Traverse Town Jr./Sr. High. He repeated its name again and again in his head, observing the linguistic highs and lows of the joined words. The school experience itself would be no challenge for him. What troubled Zexion that night was the actual adapting. Adjusting to change was never one of his strong points, and his intuition was telling him that this time would be no different.

He would be fine, he convinced himself. He would just keep to himself and everything would go smoothly. It always did.

XXXXXXXXXX

Halfway across the city, and 8th grader much like Zexion, yet so much different, sat on his bed as well, tuning his sitar. His blond hair was spiked in a faux-hawk manner, and his green eyes were closed as he listened for the exact pitch that his instrument needed to achieve to work properly. Demyx, as his name was, was without a doubt an extremely musical person, and being as that was, dedication to his beloved sitar was a given. Not a guitar, mind, but a _si_tar, complete with all of the respective strings, both melodic and sympathetic, four bridges, and sliding frets, all of which were included in the standard making of a sitar.

Demyx prided himself in playing such an unusual and complicated instrument; it wasn't every day that one would come across a sitarist on the streets of Traverse Town, nor was it common to hear a sitar in modern-day pop music. He would often get criticized for his preference, since people thought that a musical instrument was useless unless popular songs were able to be played upon it. Demyx shrugged this all away whenever it came up. Why would he want to play someone else's song when he could just as easily play his own? Aside from that, his sitar was a bright shade of blue, with darker blue streaks going up and down the neck and resonator. How cool was _that? _

His goal for that night was just that; he was in an artistic mood, and what better to quench a thirst for music than a private session with his trusty sitar? Before the composing could begin, though, he needed to tune the thing, and in sight of the fact that one string didn't seem to want to cooperate, this goal seemed a far ways off.

With a grunt of frustration, Demyx put his sitar aside and stared out of his bedroom window, looking out at the orange-tinted streets and buildings whose color showed itself in daylight. Tonight, however, the concrete and homes gave off a brown-indigo hue; not that it mattered too much. The scenery out his window would be the same the next day, and the next day, and the next. That was, unless, an earthquake hit Traverse Town suddenly, but they were as far away as possible from any sort of fault line, and earthquakes do not just occur randomly unless a fault line and plate tectonics are present. It was too bad, though. The city could use a bit of remodeling.

Reminding himself that it was a Sunday night, he closed the blinds that covered his circular window. Sunday night meant that Monday morning wasn't far away, and Monday morning meant the start of a new week at Traverse Town Jr./Sr. High, Demyx's current school. He directed a glance towards the clock sitting atop his bedstand. It read 9:30 pm, and it dictated that it was high time that he start getting ready for bed before anxiety got the best of him and cost him another night of sleep. Bidding himself 'good night' audibly, he flicked the switch on his far wall and laid down for another nighttime full of restless sleep and merciless dreaming.

--

A/N: This is the first Kingdom Hearts fanfic I've written in a while, so forgive me if it's a little disorganized. Well, I blame my sudden addiction to Zemyx and my newly acquired _My Chemical Romance_ CD for this.

Don't own Roomba, _The Golden Compass, _or Demyx's sitar (though I wish I owned the last one).


	2. Zexion, the Smart One

Next chapter of this from me. Celebrate? I guess…

The prologue to this got next to no hits and reviews…it was kind of depressing…but fear not, those of you who care enough to read! I will continue this, simply because I have no real story planned past a certain point and I'd like to see where this one will take me.

I bet I scared most of the readers away with the wording of the first paragraph. I am sorry for that, but I'm trying out a new writing style with this fanfiction. And, I normally get Traverse Town and Twilight Town mixed up, so for those of you who were confused in the prologue, I was originally going to make Twilight Town the setting of the story. Well, due to my own stupidity, it is now Traverse Town (which, to the best of my knowledge, is not orange), but it really doesn't matter. Cheers.

Don't own Draino, which is a drain unclogger that's extremely basic (meaning it's the opposite of acid). I heard somewhere that it burns skin, hence the reference…

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Zexion's breath huffed and puffed as he worked his way up the stairs preceding his new school. What a rigorous start to the day; because he was new in town and didn't know his way around, he had been running up and down countless city streets to find the building, and being the unathletic 13-year-old that he was, the steps he was being forced to climb we absolutely brutal. Fortuitously, the tardy bell wouldn't ring for ten minutes still, so Zexion was safe for the time being.

Because of the hectic event that had taken place, he was jumpy for the first fifteen minutes of the routine educational experience, at least; though the school had sent him his locker assignment and class schedule in the mail, knowing where to go and knowing how to get there are two different things entirely, and Zexion wasn't well-known for his sense of direction. Hell, he didn't _have_ a sense of direction to be well-known for.

This confusion had left him wandering the halls aimlessly for most of the day, but successing a series of late class arrivals was a streak of punctual appearances; it seemed that his brain had begun processing the layout of the large building. The school was divided into an east and a west wing, the west being the smaller and where the minority of Zexion's classes were; this was probably the junior high half of Traverse Town Jr./Sr. High. The east wing, largely more massive than the east and with more than two floors accommodating its huge student body, housed all of the academic classes and the high school portion of the school's enrollment.

To the passerby's eye, Zexion didn't belong in high school; his physique was undeveloped even for his own age group, and his voice was much higher than that of his fellow male classmates. If one was to wait and observe his performance in his courses, however, they would find that his intellect could hold its own and more against his peers and that Zexion could conduct himself with such grace and maturity that an adult twice his age would struggle greatly at best to achieve and maintain. To state the obvious, he was a genius well beyond his years, and he was welcomed warmly into his upper-level classes by the professors, whom of which were eager to work with someone of his mental capacity.

Several of Zexion's courses were held in the west wing, on the contrary, though they were mainly the classes which demanded the use of the right side of one's brain: art, music, and so on. The settings here seemed to agree more with him at first glance; many of his contemporaries were going though an awkward stage of puberty just as he was, so none of them seemed to fit into their own skins, but within minutes of the classes commencing it became painfully apparent that he did not blend in as well as he should have. Zexion's immense vocabulary and sophisticated ways of wording sentences left the rest of the eighth graders puzzled and often insulted, not to mention that he made a point to talk in a bored monotone, infuriating teachers with its implied (or so they thought) subordination.

Zexion himself found this mind-numbing at best and too expressive for his tastes. He had been through it all before; the higher classes' instructors were both honored and excited to have him present in their respective subjects, always doting on him almost as to buy their way into being his favorite teacher, but the lower-level classes' educationalists were often annoyed by his behavior and were always correcting him, trying to get him to act like the irresponsible middle-schooler that they thought that he should be rather than the regal and advanced person he was. Zexion hated it all, loathed it to the point that it left a severely unpleasant taste in the back of his throat, yet he never said anything about it. Geniuses, he was taught, never spoke out against authority. This had proven true beforehand, also; every time he spoke his mind about something in the past, whatever it happened to be, it was always used against him and he was always harshly criticized for the littlest errors possible. They seemed to forget that he was, indeed, a teenager, and nothing a teenager says is ever free of inaccuracy.

Everything was so uniform, it was, that only two happenings actually stuck in Zexion's head when the final bell rang. The first was something that most would have dismissed as nothing, but seeing that Zexion was not most, it remained clear in his head long after it had transpired. In his perplexed and misguided wandering at the beginning of the day, he had collided head-on into another student, causing them both to drop the many books they each were carrying.

The other person involved in the crash immediately plummeted to his knees to gather his things. "Oh, God, I'm sorry! Sorry!" he repeated several times, though it had clearly been Zexion's fault. He followed suite wordlessly, pushing his heavy chemistry, trigonometry, and French textbooks into a clumsy yet stable stack as well as his beloved copy of _The Golden Compass _(reading material was always required in case of boredom in his lesser courses). Only when he went to stand up did he see whom he had run into.

The two boys had gone to anchor themselves upright at the same time, and in the process they had bumped heads. Zexion looked up with a wince, and hand holding his textbooks and the other his skull to set eyes on his victim; this particular student had a lovely apricot complexion, an embarrassed smile, and honey-blonde hair coated with gel and molded to stand on end like that of a faux-hawk. The other stared back, with bright emerald eyes gleaming intriguingly, and stretched up forthright. "Yeah, um…sorry," he said again, turning to head off to his next class. "See ya 'round, I guess," he called, hurrying off.

The genius stood up as well, watching as the mysterious one headed toward the west wing. He had been a minimum of four inches taller than Zexion, and he was in middle school?! Smart as he was, he always seemed to get the short end of the stick when it came to the physical attributes of the gene pool.

The second incident was more significant than the first, being as dangerous and foolhardy as it was. Zexion had been sitting alone at a table directly in front of another with two people sitting at it during chemistry class 4th period. Because it was Monday, and because the teacher didn't feel like instructing, she simply assigned the student two-column notes on the third section of their current chapter in the book, and naturally, the room was quietly abuzz with whispers and meaningless conversations regarding other peoples' love interests, among other things. The people behind him, however, were verbalizing about something much more interesting:

"Okay, so Larxene got a full bottle of Draino the other day, and my game plan is—"

"Axel! Draino? Isn't that a little harsh?"

"You haven't even bothered to listen to my idea!"

"But, come on! Draino! That basic stuff'll burn though his skin like acid would! We could get _expelled _for that!

"And you care because…?"

The second voice sighed. "Axel…"

"Look, Mar, if we were concerned about being expelled, we'd rank right up there with Hayner's crew and Riku. Trust me, they won't do anything to—"

"I'm not worried about the school," the second, allegedly named 'Mar,' said in a hushed voice, said, "it's the kid in question. Ever think that we're—"

"Who _cares _about the kid in question?" Axel, the first tone, retorted abruptly. "He's a wuss, he won't do anything to us. And, if he becomes suicidal and kills himself, well, that's one less riffraff we have to contend with." Mar sighed again in response, and Axel groaned. "Look, I'll do all the pouring, okay? All you have to do is hold him down. Just wait, it'll be guilt-free."

Zexion rolled his eyes as he finished a sentence in his notes and stopped listening to the high schoolers' banter. Whoever those guys were, they were nothing but bullies who happened to have one favorite victim in particular. They were nothing special; just insecure kids with sadistic interests. If they didn't grow out of it, they would be put in their place by someone else both bigger and stronger than they were, swallowing their pride in the meantime.

--

Zexion fiddled around with his lock minutes after the final bell had rung; he was in no rush. He was rather meticulous when in came to schoolwork, and in sight of the fact that he walked home anyway, he would rather be sure that he had all of the correct books and assignments before going home as opposed to getting out of the school building quickly and forgetting a piece of homework, forcing himself to do it during homeroom or another time in which he had freedom.

His locker door was closed, his backpack was shouldered with the appropriate work packed neatly inside of it, and his book was tucked neatly in his hand underneath his forearm; a dignified air accompanied Zexion as he made his way out of the establishment. Due to the fact that it was long past the time of which when the last bell had rung, the halls were barren and empty, devoid of their normal students. The eerie quiet that came along with this state was borderline paranormal, even for non-superstitious, practical Zexion, and said silence probably would have reigned if it weren't for the wail that had pierced through it like a knife does butter.

The genius watched from behind a concrete corner found on his route out the door, observing who was crying out and why. Apparently, there were four people involved: a redhead with extreme spikes that would make Cloud Strife's pale in comparison, a strange pink-haired person helping a beach-blonde girl hold a honey-blonde boy down onto the floor, as if they were replacements for shackles; the captive was the one doing all the pitiful screaming. The redhead stood before the three humans on the floor with an atmosphere of sado-fascistic glee surrounding him, clutching at a dark gray bottle of some sort and laughing in a disturbingly malicious way.

He then took the bottle, which was now allowing the thick liquid contained inside of it run, and poured it over all of the captive's exposed skin, not even leaving the most sensitive areas of the face go untouched. The honey-blonde screamed out more, but this made the others' countenance contort wildly with power. The girl made loud, barking commands: Put it in his eyes! Rub it in really good! Don't stop! The redhead happily obliged, taking care to follow her orders to a toed line, and the pink-haired person (its gender wasn't able to be discerned) grimaced with each demand, disapprovingly glaring at the two with each of the victim's cries. It seemed to be the one with the most sense.

Once the two sadists had had enough of their afflicting merriment, the bottle was cast aside and the captive left alone. Walking away with the beach-blonde, the redhead gave an unexpected order: "Mar, get rid of the evidence, will ya?"

The pink-haired person, who was now definitely known to Zexion as Mar, rose to his feel and gave a horrified nod. Mar watched as his two cohorts left, taking the now-unfilled bottle and carefully disposing of it in the nearest trash can (which was located at the other end of the hall, lucky for Zexion; judging for what he had just witnessed, it would be extremely unwise to get caught at this point) and muttered something in a male voice. "Sheez, an entire bottle of Draino? What the hell were they thinking? Those guys are royally messed up if they feel guiltless after this…"

Mar, as it turned out, was a boy, and more importantly, was in the tête-à-tête earlier that day in chemistry; that meant that the redhead was Axel, for the two that had been chatting were distinctly male, and the girl must have been Larxene. But, who was the object of the tormenters' attention? Mar had departed, leaving the victim hugging his knees into his chest and weeping softly, moaning with pain and anguish, with Zexion confused and curious. What had the kid done to deserve that kind of treatment?

Resisting his better judgment, Zexion approached the boy cautiously, though he didn't seem to notice as the genius stretched out the long sleeve of his windbreaker coat to cover his hand and gently began to scrape at the blonde's skin, so as to remover the Draino from his bicep. Most of the solution had already soaked in, but what hadn't was coming off slowly and surely. The sobs from the honey-blonde ranged from quieted to hysterical; despite the shaky tears emanating from the other boy, Zexion continued to remove the liquid until Blondie's arms were as clean as they would get without using medical tools and medicines. "Show your face to me," he demanded to the other boy, determined to finish the job he had started.

The other nodded, lifting his head from his lap to make it more accessible. In between the tightly closed eyes and the drain-cleaner scabs was the face of the boy involved in Zexion's crash that morning, and the blue-white hair's owner gasped inwardly; such a handsome face, damaged possibly beyond repair. Nevertheless, a job unfinished is an angel's bane, so to speak, so after pulling his other sleeve over his opposite hand, to create a clean brush, he continued wiping, trying to do all he could for the poor kid, who began to croak out some intelligent phrases (sort of). "Ow…oh God, my eyes…God, help me…"

Zexion sighed as he finished on his forehead. Those bastards just had to torture someone like this; they never though about the person on the receiving end of the behavior. It made him sick more than the doting teachers did.

Anon, the blonde staggered to his feet, using the wall behind him as support. His eyes were still squeezed shut from the Draino being forcibly poured into them. "Hey," started his simple request, "c-could you lead me to th-the door? I'm pretty sure my mom's waiting in the car…if you don't mind…"

"Of course," was Zexion's reply, said as he took the blonde's arm just above the elbow and walked toward the main doors across the way, opened them with the use of the designated push bar, and took the other boy to the sidewalk where a car was waiting for him. From there, Zexion let go and made his way to his home while wishing Blondie the best of luck in the rest of his day, which came straight from his heart.

Strolling to his domicile that day, he pondered about all that had happened that day of which he bothered to remember: he had crashed into someone in the hallway, witnessed a ruthless beating of sorts, and performed a random act of kindness all before four o'clock that afternoon. He had also fostered a distasteful hate for Mar, Axel, and Larxene (Axel being the one whom of which his abhor was the strongest), as well as a possible acquaintanceship for someone of his own age (as apposed to his grade level). What a first day it had been.

And, even in all the events that had occurred that day, Zexion still hadn't learned the name of the young man with the honey-blonde hair and the embarrassed smile.

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Well, that was fulfilling enough, for a boring winter's day. It also gave the plotline a kick-start, which is pretty impressive, for me.

Just in case some of you haven't figured it out, Mar is Marluxia. His full name is very long (if you pronounce it the way I do), so it made sense to have him have a nickname. Additionally, Zexion will refer to him as 'Mar' until he learns Marluxia's full name, simply because in the story, he doesn't know Marly's full name.

Concrit?


	3. Marluxia, the Hassled One

Yo peeps, I'm back with an update. Sorry it took so long; at first I was going to have the second chapter as a Demyx-centered section, but the words just weren't flowing, and I wanted to cover both sides of the Draino incident, so I just said, "Screw this. I'm doing a Marly chapter." And, then, I wasn't happy with most of what I wrote as the first draft, so I rewrote it…

…Yeah. Let's hope this one was worth it.

I also decided on a title (three letters: short, sweet, and to the point), and redid the description. I didn't like the other one, and it didn't do the storyline any justice, so I hope this new one will.

Don't own Draino or the song "California Hotel," (whose lyrics are hinted at in this chapter).

* * *

It was a sunny day, to be blunt; the sidewalks brightly reflected the light being projected onto them, and the various foliage that grew along the pavement seemed to happily sway in the cool November breeze. This was the type of day that Marluxia liked the best – the overall image of the scenery was visually appealing to him.

It was a shame that he couldn't enjoy it that day, though, due to the shameful and embarrassing act he had just helped his comrades accomplish. Axel and Larxene, the peers in question, had somehow acquired a full bottle of Draino, and, deciding that it would just be a _splendid _idea, poured it all over their unlucky and regular victim, and eight-grader named Demyx. Marluxia felt genuinely sorry for the poor middle-schooler, as he should, because he knew how far both Axel and Larxene would go to get a good laugh out of something, totally disregarding the ethics behind their decisions.

Guilty more than he had ever been before in his life, he pushed his hands into his sweatshirt's pocket, gaze staring at the cracks in the pavement. A sickly bile taste rose to the back of his throat; he just couldn't believe that they would do something as unorthodox and, frankly, stupid, to someone as harmless and friendly as Demyx. It just didn't make any sense, and on top of that, Mar felt somewhat responsible for what had taken place, due to the fact that he didn't let his inhibitions kick in early enough to discourage and stop Axel from making his rash verdict to go along with the Draino plan.

Marluxia shook his head rigorously to help himself lose the train of thought. The dark deed had been done, the damnations made, and the wounds inflicted. There was no point in asking "Why hadn't I done something?" now.

In a relatively short amount of time, he found himself on the doorstep of a shabby, multiple-storied building whose front lawn, practically nonexistent, was simply bare dirt and whose brick walls had been dyed with obsidian-black paint that permitted the brick's original red show through the porous surface. With a dry laugh, he welcomed himself home to Castle Oblivion, the place where one could check out whenever they wanted but could never really leave.

Immediately, he entered the graffiti-covered front door and headed up to his room on the eleventh floor, passing a few of his fellow mafia members in the halls in the meantime. This place, called The Castle by its inhabitants, housed an accomplished gang that went by the name of Organization XIII, whom of which was responsible for most of the widespread crime in Traverse Town. How Marluxia had gotten tangled up in its affairs and let it use his parents' apartment building for housing, he wasn't sure; one minute, his best friend Axel had been fraternizing with the Organization's leader, and the next, both Larxene and him were fully initiated members, along with Axel himself.

His room's door opened with a satisfying and homely creak, and Mar happily dropped himself onto the daybed, still in its couch form, at the far side of the dorm. There wasn't a feeling quite like being home, he deduced, surrounded by his various possessions and assorted vases full of daffodils, roses, lilacs, and other flowers he used to spice up the otherwise bland all-white interior designing. The only thing that could make his personal nook even better would be his parents themselves, but they had been long dead, and Marluxia had moved on.

He gave a loud groan when he heard Saïx's—another member of the Organization—voice over the crappy PA system someone had installed a while back. "Meeting in the third basement, tonight at 6 o'clock," it droned, signaling that Xemnas, the despot of the Organization, had something important to discuss or correct; whenever he held any type of gathering within the gang, it usually mean Armageddon for the rest of the Earth, and an even worse hell for his associates.

Time passed as Marluxia nonchalantly performed the normal activities that he did after school, which mainly consisted of doing homework assignments and listening the shit out of his many CDs, but soon 6:00 came, and it was mandatory for him to make his way down the many flights of stairs (his parents, in all their intelligence, hadn't installed an elevator) and relocate to the third basement, which shared the same basic color scheme and design style as the rest of the building and was where most of the meetings and gatherings were held. Seating himself in his respective chair on the north side of the circular table that was placed in the middle of the room, he watched as the rest of the mob crossed the threshold: Larxene, Axel, Saïx, Luxord, Xaldin, Vexen, Lexaeus, Xigbar, and finally, Xemnas.

All of them took their respective places in their respective chairs, each with a Roman numeral inscribed into the backs of the furniture, and their leader began to speak once everyone had settled themselves. "My fellow Organization members," he began, regality virtually radiating from his voice, "there has been both a trajedy and a great loss. Today, it seems, we have lost three of out ranks; Numbers IX and VI were killed while in a…skirmish with our friends Seifer and Company," he said, pausing to let his subordinates express their hate for the rival gang that occupied the nearby city of Twilight Town. "And, it appears that our beloved XIII is missing in action," the kingpin continued, shifting his odd orange eyes over to Axel. "Is his location still under investigation, VIII?"

The redhead let out a hum. "Not anymore, I," he said, calling his leader by his self-given cipher, rebelliously letting a careless undertone materialize itself. "In fact, the case is just about closed."

"Good, good," the higher-ranked gangster replied, looking away and nodding, making the silvery sheen of his hair move along with his head. "Therefore, we have only lost two," he boldly stated, letting his horrifically overpowering stare drift over to Marluxia. "XI," he stated, as the young mafia member jumped to attention at the sound of his number being called, "I'm putting you in charge of recruitments because of your obvious loyalty and that your comrade is already taken with the job of the search-and-find for XIII. I trust you will find suitable replacements?"

Swallowing the sarcasm that was pushing itself out of his larynx, Marluxia nodded. "Of course, sir," he replied meekly, keeping his objection about being referred to as a number to himself. Everyone in Organization XIII had a name, and were more than just pawns for Xemnas to mess around with, and they should be treated as such. Thankfully, he knew better to speak out, lest he evoke the wrath of Number I.

When the assembly concluded, Axel, Larxene, and Marluxia headed back to their respective floors (every affiliate in the Organization had a dedicated floor on which their rooms were located on, due to the immensity of The Castle) in a group, playful banter and small-talk going back and forth. "God, Mansex is fucking _sexist," _Larxene whined, her eyebrows drawn together as she used the gang's nickname for their boss. "He gives all the fun recruiting and rescuing jobs to you guys, while I get absolutely nothing! So unfair!"

"Oh, _please, _Larx," Axel conciliated, rolling his eyes, "get real. The reason he gives Mar and I the important missions is because you tend to take things too far, not to mention your temper."

Larx, squinting her eyes and managing to get the weird antennae-like tufts of hair that stuck out away from her usual hairline perk up a bit more, retorted. "You're a sexist, too," she accused in a high-pitched voice.

The two sadists continued arguing, but Marluxia wasn't listening the least. Rather, his mind was focused on the task at hand—who to enlist? It was obvious that Xemnas wanted some younger practitioners, since he had chosen one of the more youthful members for the assignment, but the leader obviously wasn't aware that most of the age group he was targeting had little to no potential inside of it; most of the "hopefuls" weren't brave enough to do something illegal or dangerous, and society discouraged gangs so much that anyone else who might have considered joining one would quickly turn their noses at the thought. So, the perfect and only candidate possible would be someone who had been restricted by their guardians and/or totally oblivious to the media around them, but people like that didn't exist. Or, if they did, they would be incarcerated in parochial schools and unavailable.

His thoughts were destroyed as Axel waved a mocking hand if front of his face. "Yo, Mar, you in there?" he asked, teasing his friend, "or are you on another coffee break?"

"Drop it, Axel," Maluxia snapped, still disgusted at the Draino incident that had taken place earlier that day. "Leave me alone."

The redhead shirked away, retracting his hand and his ever-present smile. "Touchy, touchy," he _tsk_ed, turning to pad off of the stairwell of which he was standing and enter his floor. "Just a joke."

_Yeah, just a joke. That's what today's little mishap was,_ Marluxia thought sourly. _Nowadays, jokes cause pain and suffering. They aren't in good fun as much as they are in cold blood, and they aren't funny anymore._

Sauntering back into his room, Mar caught his reflection in his peripheral vision via the mirror propped up on top of a small redwood dresser, and he stopped to examine himself, stretching and squishing the skin around his eyes, poking at zits that had appeared over the past few days, and pulling his wavy pink hair that refused to hold the color of any dye and straighten under any circumstance. It was because of his hair that Marluxia had earned himself many a rude moniker: Faggot, Gaywad, Fluffy-Ass-Flower-Gardener, among others. Though he took pride in his gardening hobby, he was definitely straight and thus didn't like the names being pinned onto him for something that repudiated to let him correct it, but he didn't let it bother him much. Hell, he was a gangster. A _gangsta. _Half the kids enrolled at his school wished they had his status.

Ceasing his personal inspection, Mar threw himself onto the daybed and shut his eyes, lolling his head back over the armrest and falling asleep. The meeting had gone on longer than expected, not to mention the 'team-builder activity' that Saïx had forced them to participate in, so it was now well past 10:00. He sighed as he pushed his recruitment job to the back of his head. It would start tomorrow, when there were actual outsiders around to consider.

Just a Marluxia had though, the pickings were slim to none at the educational establishment; absolutely no one attending Traverse Town Jr./Sr. High could emotionally or physically handle being a part of Organization XIII, or even handle talking to Xemnas and other kingpins without collapsing from the pure adrenaline rush combined with the fear that the autocrats instilled; at least, not in the high school portion of the school, and he wouldn't dream of trying to get a middle-schooler into the gang, since they would either jump at the change and get killed one way or another, or be too frightened to try. And, even if he did find someone who would even remotely fit the bill, not one person who'd been at the educational building for more than two weeks would take him up on the offer, simply because he was widely known as a wimpy-ass gardener (though he wasn't, in any term of the word, wimpy).

Even so, one student showed some signs of being able to withstand and survive the criminal life: a newcomer name Zexion, who carried himself with humongous amounts of dignity and was stoic to the point of perfection, both of which were excellent qualities when dealing with gang leaders. He was also incredibly intellectual and intuitive, well above anyone's standards, and he had just came into the school, so he didn't know about Marluxia's false reputation. There was one problem, though, that couldn't be overlooked: Zexion was extremely young. If it weren't for his giftedness, he would have been in eighth grade; Mar absolutely _would not _recruit that.

Aside from the scholars' general failure to make the cut, Demyx hadn't been at school that day, and Axel was unbelievably stressed and irritable, along with other unpleasant feelings. It was as if torturing the blond was like getting high for him; without a fix, he would go through withdrawals, causing him to be moody, get the shakes, and lash out for no apparent reason. It was sad, really, relying on someone else's pain for entertainment, and it had a deteriorating effect on the persona—Marluxia had watched his best friend go from bad to worse over the past few months, and it hurt to watch.

Mar did his best to protect both sides of the bullying equation, but it didn't always work, in view of Axel's tenacity and Larxene's being a true thirst-for-blood type of person, urging him on to harm their target. Each time got more sophisticated, more devious, and more dangerous, and though Marluxia tried to stop its progression, it did next to no good. They were both addicted for life.

Perhaps it was the redhead's mission that was causing him to crave the violence: XIII, also known as Roxas, and Axel had been very close friends (almost too close for comfort), and it would put Axel under a great deal of pressure to find his companion. So, if Marluxia could figure out a way to get Roxas back to the Organization, Axel wouldn't feel the need to torment Demyx, and he would go back to the way he was before the AWOL member had gone missing a few months ago.

How would he do that, though? He remembered watching Zexion care for the victimized kid after the whole Draino incident, so it was possible that he wanted peace between the two boys just as much as Mar did; if he was included into the mafia, he would be allowed to assist the search and help in the retrieval; and he would be an even bigger asset to the cause because of his astonishing critical-thinking skills.

On second thought, maybe employing Zexion wasn't such a bad idea after all.

* * *

Ick. That sucked. And, the different writing style I was trying out wasn't present AT ALL. XP Well, whatever. The story can go on without it, and I can work up to it again.

Ha, I told you guys this isn't entirely a school fic. Toldja; it's about gangstas. XD

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Anything at all? You know what to do. Especially you, Krisstall.


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